The Tower Read Free Page B

done next? We were in no position to control that.’
    ‘I understand,’ Philip said, nodding. ‘And now you’re in trouble because you just can’t explain what’s going on in that cursed south-eastern quadrant. That must mean that the government, or one of her foreign allies, has plans for that area and needs to clear the field of any sort of obstacle. At this point you feel I might be useful and you want to exchange information for collaboration. I’m sorry, Jobert. It’s too late. If my father is truly alive – and I’m sincerely grateful to you for this information – I’m certain he’ll contact me sooner or later. If he does not, it means that he has very serious reasons for not doing so and I have no choice but to respect his wishes.’
    Philip picked up his bag and turned to go. Jobert’s features twitched in frustration and he raised a hand.
    ‘Please, Dr Garrett, sit down and listen to what I have to tell you. Afterwards, you can make your decision, and I promise to respect it, whatever it might be. But first listen to me, for God’s sake. It is your father we’re talking about, isn’t it?’
    Philip sat down again. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ll listen, but I’m not promising anything.’
    Jobert began his story. ‘I was a captain in the Foreign Legion, stationed at the fort of Suk el Gharb, when I first met your father. My commander had spoken to me about this American anthropologist who was carrying out research in the south-eastern quadrant and had asked for our help. He also told me that Garrett had neglected to inform him of the true purpose of his expedition, or rather that the explanations he had provided were not very convincing.
    ‘I was asked to organize things so that we could keep an eye on Garrett, unobtrusively but attentively. The Legion has always been responsible for the Saharan territories, and, given his renown, your father’s explorations were certainly of interest to us. I was in charge of the entire Suk el Gharb fort then and could not see to the matter personally, so I assigned one of my men, a Lieutenant Selznick, to discreetly learn what your father was doing and to keep me informed. He volunteered for the job himself, saying that he’d already worked with Garrett in the past and was familiar with his research.
    ‘Now, as you know, the Legion has a tradition of accepting anyone among its ranks, without asking questions about their past. Many of our men have chosen this way to escape the rule of law in their countries of origin. They see the harsh, dangerous life of the Legion as a good alternative to rotting away in a prison cell somewhere. They find new dignity under our banner, they rediscover endurance and discipline, solidarity with their comrades . . .’
    Jobert immediately picked up on Philip’s impatience. ‘What I mean to say is that we don’t ask about the past when we’re hiring soldiers, but that’s not the case with officers. All of our officers are French and their lives, their backgrounds, hold no secrets for the Legion. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case with Selznick. We had been led to believe that he was a naturalized Frenchman, born in eastern Europe, but he succeeded in hiding his true identity from us. We have learned since then that a man named Selznick was stabbed and killed many years before in a bar-room brawl in Tangiers, and that someone stole his documents and assumed his identity. A marked physical resemblance to the deceased man helped him to carry it off. We have still not managed to learn the true identity of the man we knew as Selznick, but we have well-founded suspicions that he is, in reality, a highly intelligent and frighteningly ferocious criminal . . . a ruthless man who, during the Great War, carried out a number of missions for various governments, missions that required enormous courage, an absolute lack of scruples and the capacity to strike out at anyone in any way, by any means.’
    Jobert paused and swallowed